Wig Making

Before working on manOman I didn't have any hair punching experience. I didn't have access to a proper hair punching tool but was able to make my own with a popsicle stick and a needle. Using wire cutters I just cut the end of the needle off and hot glued it to the popsicle stick. I will use Alpha as an example on how I made the wigs. 

The wigs are all made with felting wool. It's available in a wide range of colours and textures. The wool I used was all bought from www.worldofwool.co.uk

Mixing different colours of wool together means that you can easily create new colours. To mix colours I layer them on top of each other and gently pull at both ends and layer on top of each other again... similar to shuffling cards. 

Repeat until desired colour is reached! 

To put the hair into the silicone I take a small piece and lay it across the area I want the hair to be and push the needle through the hair and into the silicone. 

I brush into the direction I want it, not worrying about length for now as it will be trimmed later. I found it's better to concentrate on getting all of the head covered first and then style it.  

It's not really necessary to put hair into the back of the head if you can cover it with the length of the top few layers. It saves on wool and time. 

To style the hair I used basic hair gel that sets hard. 

An example of colours used to make blonde hair.

Hair punching on the train.. 

More process shots: 

Burning The Car.

It was a fairly spontaneous and last minute decision to burn the car. It was to be part of the montage scene, and was encouraged by pretty much everyone because of all the agro the car caused, and we all wanted to see it burn to the ground. On a very cold December 2nd night we burned it to the ground! There was a lot of heath and safety to worry about but we got Chris Dubock from the visual effects department to help. He is the guy you go to in Beaconsfield when you want to burn things or blow anything up.

Puppeteering in front of massive flames in the freezing cold was a little challenging. As the other puppeteers had already left by this point, I puppeteered Manny with Paco. Terry the composer and Terry the animation student who puppeteered with me over the summer, were on Glenn.


Rehearsing the shot. There was a lot of pressure to get it right first time, as there is only one car. One take. 

Chris rigging the car up to burn. As far as I know he was using fabric soaked in lighter fluid and putting it inside the car. None of us were sure how well the car would burn because of all the different materials on it. 

More rehearsals 

Lighting it up!